Why we should shift to local climate metrics

The world recently surpassed an increase in average global temperatures of 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) as compared to pre-industrial times. This was a significant milestone, as it marked that we are halfway to a tipping point at which scientists believe the impact of climate change may become irreversible.

One might think that such an ominous milestone would have been met with broad public concern. After all, a 1 C increase in global temperatures means that climate change no longer can be considered a future phenomenon, as the adverse effects are being felt today. Instead, this milestone barely made it into the daily news cycle.

While other global events often drown out focus on this critical topic, another reason may be that average change in global temperature is a flawed metric for communicating the seriousness of the issue with the broader public.

First, a 1 C change is an abstract concept for most. In the human experience, no one would bat an eye if the ambient temperature changed by so little, so it is not intuitive that such a seemingly small temperature change on a global scale could wreak such havoc on our environment.

Second, an average implies uniform change globally, when, in fact, it has been highly variable across geographies, topographies and seasons. For example, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, over the past four decades, surface temperatures have risen 2.5 times more over land than over the oceans. Such a dramatic increase in land temperatures is lost when using averages, even though it disproportionately will affect the human condition in the near term.

Climate communicators need not to look far afield to understand the flaw in relying on averages. As the marketing adage goes: “There are no average customers. Some people like iced tea and some like hot tea, but very few ask for lukewarm tea.”

Communicators should rethink how rising temperatures are communicated to the broader public. One logical shift would be to more broadly communicate local or regional temperature changes and trends. This could be based on annual regional averages or by season. Doing so also would highlight dramatic changes that disproportionately affect local environments and ecosystems.

For example, while global temperatures have risen 1 C on average, average local temperatures already have risen 1.7 C in Alaska, and a whopping 3.2 C during Alaskan winters since 1949.

Similarly, the Southwest has experienced a dramatic increase in summer temperatures over the last four decades, now averaging 2 C higher. While some might expect such increases in a largely arid area such as the Southwest, average temperatures also have risen dramatically in other regions such as the Northeast where average summer temperatures are up 1.7 C during the same period.

Yet while local metrics may be more effective than global in communicating the seriousness of climate change, research suggests that there may be a limit to how effective any metrics are, as people tend to value their own experiences over statistical evidence.

Such preference for personal empiricism can be detrimental, of course, if it if it leads people to dismiss scientific evidence such as the very existence of anthropogenic climate chance.

But it also can also be a good thing if personal experience and intuition concurs with scientific findings. In fact, studies indicate that humans are able to perceive local temperature changes as well as changes in the onset and duration of seasons. Significantly, “individuals who live in places with rising average temperatures are more likely than others to perceive local warming.”

If the public already senses rising local temperatures then the proper role for metrics is not to use them solely as evidence to convince individuals that change is actually happening, but rather as affirmation of a change already being felt locally. This would necessitate a shift in how we communicate metrics from reporting to validating personal experience.

Such validation would strengthen conviction around what many people already know and embolden them to share their views with others, amplifying word of mouth.

–Originally published on Greenbiz, 2015

 

Innovative Black Carbon Certificates Fuel Traditional Cookstove Replacement

Recently, the Gold Standard Foundation, a leading standards organization for climate mitigation projects, launched a first-of-its-kind program to certify the reduction in black carbon emissions when traditional cookstoves are replaced with more efficient ones. While these certificates do not have monetary value in and of themselves, they have the potential to transform funding for cookstove replacement by providing donors with verified outcomes.

Black carbon or soot is generated from the incomplete burning of biomass – wood, animal dung or brush – as well as polluting diesel engines. It is second to carbon dioxide in its contribution to global warming. But, the detrimental impact of soot does not stop there. It also compromises water security for millions by accelerating glacial melt where it settles.

And worse, traditional cookstoves – responsible for up to 25% of black carbon emissions worldwide – are the primary cause of indoor air pollution for 3 billion people, causing the premature deaths of 4.3 million, including 500,000 children.* Not only does soot contribute to global warming, but a global health crisis too.

There has been a concerted effort by organizations such as the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves to replace traditional stoves with cleaner ones. Indeed, these programs have had success: since 2010, more than 20 million cleaner and more efficient cookstoves and fuels have been adopted by people in developing countries, largely in urban areas.

Yet, this effort has been hampered by a myriad of challenges, with cost being one of the most vexing. At $10-100 apiece, modern cookstoves are simply out of reach for many of the world’s poorest households.* Moreover, familiar benefits from such a purchase are often hard to put a value on, things such as time saved gathering wood or reduced risk of respiratory disease.

Cookstove replacement programs already attract financial support from carbon credits generated by reducing associated carbon dioxide emissions. But, current protocols neither quantify black carbon emissions nor measure its reduction. It is this gap that this certificate program seeks to fill.

And, by doing so, black carbon certificates have the potential to generate even greater benefits than carbon credits alone. Here’s how. These certificates:

• Attract funding from a wider range of sources given that they tackle issues beyond climate change including water security and human health. Donors could include governmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as multi-national corporations such as Unilever which already invests heavily in sustainable living initiatives around the world.

• Can generate greater premiums for associated carbon credits than otherwise would be expected because of the added benefit of certifying black carbon reduction too. Additional funding will accelerate stove replacement by subsidizing the purchase price and ongoing maintenance fees or distribution costs, especially in harder to reach rural areas.

• Provide a powerful signal to the market that demand for more efficient cookstoves is about to scale. To date, only 4% of traditional stoves have been replaced.* This leaves a massive market opportunity yet to be tapped and ripe for further innovation.

Reducing black carbon emitted from traditional cookstoves benefits human health and the environment. Though not a monetary instrument in and of itself, Certified Outcome Statements have the potential to accelerate cookstove replacement by attracting greater funding from donors that seek results-based outcomes. Replacement programs – certified to benefit both people and the planet – should ignite greater interest in this effort by all of us.

* Source: The Gold Standard Foundation

Transforming the Climate Conversation Through Social Video

Originally published on Greenbiz, June 5, 2014

Over the last two decades, non-profit organizations have tried to influence U.S. consumer belief in anthropogenic, or human-driven, climate change. During that time, many high profile campaigns have been launched, from the Evangelical Environmental Network’s What Would Jesus Do? campaign in 2000 to Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection’s bipartisan We Can Solve It campaign in 2008 to 350.org’s Do the Math campaign in 2012.

While each campaign recorded its own successes, consumer data suggests that their collective impact on consumer beliefs has been nominal. Today, only a slim majority of Americans (57 percent) believe that climate change is caused by human activity, a percentage largely unchanged since Gallup’s Environment poll started in 2001.

Of course, there are many reasons why such campaigns might not have had broader impact. The campaigns may not have reached enough skeptics of anthropogenic climate change, or if they did, may have delivered messages that did not resonate or were discounted relative to counterarguments made by media organizations such as Fox News.

Former hedge fund executive Tom Steyer is already planning the next climate campaign through his super PAC NextGen Climate Action. NextGen intends to influence voting behavior in the midterm election, with the goal of electing public officials more likely to pass climate change legislation.

Taking a page from Obama’s 2012 reelection playbook, NextGen plans to connect one-on-one with voters — including skeptics of anthropogenic climate change — through tailored messages believed to have the best chance at swaying votes. While this latest effort is laudable, NextGen faces challenges similar to previous climate campaigns, namely, motivating skeptics to listen to its message and trust in the messenger that delivers it.

Advertisers face similar challenges in influencing consumers today through traditional advertisements. A recent Nielsen study indicates that, for Americans, “recommendations from people that [they] know” is, by far, the most trusted form of advertising (84 percent, up 6 percentage points from 2007.)

What this suggests is that the best way to influence consumer beliefs on climate change is to have trusted family and friends deliver the message, not advertisers. But to do so, an advertiser still faces high hurdles in motivating some people to watch messages delivered directly from the advertiser and then share them, whether by email, text, social network or word of mouth, across social circles. Such shared messages are impactful, not just because they come from a trusted source, but also because they come with an endorsement — implicitly or explicitly — from that person.

So, how do advertisers motivate consumers to share ads?

Leading global advertisers such as P&G, Samsung, Chrysler and Ford have delivered repeated success by engaging hundreds of millions of consumers through choice — or user-initiated — video. This is how it works: video ads are placed amongst native content on publisher sites across the web. When consumers find them relevant to their experience, they click and view them. To an advertiser, choice video is still an ad. But, to a consumer, it is content — and content that consumers choose to watch, and share if compelled to do so.

Non-profits and green brands such as Seventh Generation and Method also have leveraged choice video to engage consumers. Advertisers leverage choice video not just because it generates media efficiencies as shared (or earned) views are free, but because it also drives real impact, as demonstrated in multiple brand studies conducted jointly by Visible Measures and Insights Express, a leading research company.

Let’s take a closer look at some successful non-profit campaigns. One example is the Kony 2012 campaign launched by the non-profit organization Invisible Children. This campaign featured a 30-minute, documentary-style video that engaged viewers with a gripping story of a boy forced into being a child soldier fighting for Joseph Kony, a brutal rebel leader in Africa. In all, more than 229 million viewers have watched this video, making it one of the most viewed video campaigns of all time.
The campaign’s success not only was measured by its viewership, but also by how many viewers felt compelled to share it.
So the question becomes how does an advertiser motivate viewers to share a video, even one with a storyline as dark as this? The answer is straightforward: viewers share when they feel rewarded for doing so.

In the case of Kony 2012, the campaign was positioned to viewers as a way to build awareness for Joseph Kony’s atrocities in the hope that by making him famous, governments would come under pressure to take action to stop him. Viewers readily shared and engaged with the video across their social networks and, in return, gained a sense of personal satisfaction in knowing that their actions were helping to bring Kony to justice.

Most social videos, fortunately, tell a more positive story than Kony 2012’s. One recent example is a video campaign launched by Thai mobile operator TrueMove H, Giving Is the Best Communications. This gripping three-minute video tells the story of a storekeeper’s generosity toward a small boy that is repaid 30 years later. It has garnered over 16 million views to date from around the world — many of them generated through social sharing.

Viewers watch this video because it tells a universally appealing story that transcends cultural and language barriers to emotionally connect with viewers. Arguably, viewers have been sharing it because they get satisfaction from inspiring others — or perhaps even bragging rights of sort from being the first in their social group to share it. Regardless, the sharing of this video comes with an implicit or explicit endorsement from a trusted source to watch it.

Now, a similar opportunity exists to leverage choice video to influence consumer beliefs about climate change. Success of such a video campaign hinges on at least three things.

First, a campaign must craft a compelling story that all viewers — climate change believers and skeptics alike — want to watch. There are many ways to do this creatively, of course, but those that tell a universal story may have the broadest appeal.

Second, a campaign must distribute content to influencers and audiences across the web in order to spark social sharing. While earned media is free, most campaigns spend significant dollars building social momentum.

And third, viewers must feel rewarded for sharing. People enjoy compelling stories. But it does not mean that they automatically share them. People need an incentive for sharing in larger numbers and more often. Certainly, it can be based on a sense of personal satisfaction from taking social action as in the Kony campaign, or from inspiring others as in “Giving.” There is no reason why a climate campaign could not be awe-inspiring or feature a celebrity in a way that would enhance the reputation of those doing the sharing as trendsetters.

Choice video is a powerful medium by which to influence consumer beliefs on climate change. It not only has the potential to engage climate skeptics, but also to influence their beliefs, especially when the message is shared from a trusted source. This is one medium that climate campaigns — including Steyer’s super PAC — should give a chance.

Distributed Generation Can Fuel Local Economic Growth

“Buy Local” marketing campaigns have long been a popular – and effective – way to spur economic growth within local communities. Such programs redirect consumer spending to independent businesses closer to home. Not only does this added spending increase local sales, but it fuels greater economic activity in general as the money is more likely to be re-spent locally on other goods and services. Traditionally, such campaigns have focused on boosting sales for local farmers and artisans. They have also been used to reinvigorate downtown shopping districts, helping local merchants retain customers against encroachment by big box retailers.

Distributed Energy Generation Creates Disposable Income

Perhaps not surprisingly, there has historically been little economic incentive to promote locally-generated energy as part of these campaigns since traditionally there has not been a more local alternative to energy provided by large national companies. Today, however, distributed generation energy (DEG) has the potential to fuel greater local economic activity by putting more disposable income (or profits) in the hands of local homeowners, businesses and investors that can be spent locally.

DEG systems – fueled by solar, wind, natural gas and other energy sources – are readily available for homeowners and business to install directly. Consumers can also partner with a full service provider such as SolarCity to finance, install and maintain such systems. By deploying DEG, homeowners and businesses typically reduce their overall energy costs as well as the variability in energy pricing. Renewable DEG has the added benefit of lowering ongoing cash outlays for fossil fuels. Moreover, local DEG owners can generate incremental income by selling excess power back to the utility – or perhaps longer term to neighbors through contracts negotiated directly or brokered through the utility.

DEG Provides an Attractive Investment Opportunity

DEG systems can also provide an attractive investment opportunity for investors looking to generate moderate returns at relatively low risk. Local economies can benefit by providing a way for locals to generate an attractive return on their money – especially in this low interest rate environment – while accelerating the deployment of DEG within their communities.

Investment vehicles have emerged to facilitate this. For example, Mosaic allows qualified investors to invest smaller amounts (minimum $25) in rooftop solar energy projects. This past week, SolarCity announced that it has completed the industry’s first securitization of large scale distributed solar energy assets valued at nearly $55 million.

Market Conditions Are Increasingly Favorable

Market conditions are increasingly favorable to scaling DEG. Just this past week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission announced new standards that make it much easier for small scale (<20 megawatts), renewable DEG including rooftop solar and wind to connect to the grid. Furthermore, installation costs are coming down rapidly as conversion efficiency increases and manufacturing costs fall which is accelerating adoption. Small solar PV power capacity, for example, is expected to double within the next two years.

Rapid growth in DEG is, of course, disrupting the traditional utility model. Yet, many utilities and regulators are moving aggressively to adapt to the changing competitive environment. Duke Power, for example, is increasingly focused on providing grid services like battery storage needed to ensure grid stability as more wind and solar power capacity comes online. Meanwhile utilities American Electric Power, MidAmerican Energy and others are backing new transmission capacity to bring wind power from the Texas Panhandle to major cities. Finally, regulators like the Arizona Corporate Commission are making accommodation for utilities to ensure that they get cost recovery for transmission investment and maintenance.

Distributed generation is growing rapidly and can provide a big boost to a local economy. Community leaders should take advantage of this by promoting its expansion – and motivate local consumers to buy home-grown energy. A “Buy Local” marketing campaign may be the perfect way to encourage just that.

What Green Businesses Can Learn from Obama’s Campaign

Although President Barack Obama ran a successful campaign and won a decisive electoral-college victory, the margin in key battleground states was slight. Indeed, a shift of 407,000 votes across four of them — Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Virginia — would have given Mitt Romney the 69 electoral votes he needed for victory.

Big data has been touted as key to Obama’s victory — and securing winning margins in swing states — by enabling the campaign to focus scarce resources on voters who could be persuaded to vote for Obama and, once persuaded, were likely to actually vote.

Critical to this effort was the Obama campaign’s recognition that voters may be demographically similar while at the same time strikingly different when it came to the issues that they cared about. As Dan Wagner, the campaign‘s chief analytics officer, told The Los Angeles Times, “White suburban women? They’re not all the same. The Latino community is very diverse with very different interests. What the data permits you to do is figure out that diversity.”

For the Obama campaign, a key to victory was to precisely understand which issue would be most persuasive to a voter’s choice and then microtarget like-minded voters with messaging that relayed the President’s stance on the issue and his action plan to address the issue going forward.

Underpinning this effort by the campaign was market research to determine the precise issue that most effectively influenced voter decisions — and which voters cared about which issues. The campaign also targeted known supporters, asking them to reach out to Facebook friends in swing states in hopes of influencing their voting decisions.

Such microtargeting is not limited to campaigns. Companies can also use this approach to identify and shape green brand preferences, and ultimately, purchase decisions. Here is how:

Focus on consumer persuadability. Politicians are known for boasting to voters about what they have done while in office and expecting voter support in return. This is similar to how many brands tout their green accomplishments today: more recyclable, safer chemicals, reduced material content. But, as in politics, such accomplishments may not be relevant to consumers, green or otherwise. Nor are they necessarily factors that influence brand preference and choice.

In contrast, the Obama campaign had a laserlike focus on the issues most associated with influencing voter decisions. Brands can learn from such an approach. By determining not only what consumers care about but also prioritizing messaging to focus on those needs most associated with consumer preference and choice, brands can have greater impact for a given investment. In each case, market research is required to reveal what cares or needs have the most influence on preference and choice and for which audiences.

Method’s recent Clean Happy video campaign illustrates such an approach. The campaign targets household decision-makers and focuses on a broad range of consumer cares and needs and how Method’s products deliver on each.

For example, one video titled “Clean Like a Mom” promotes Method household cleaning products that contain safer chemicals than traditional cleaners. But, instead of focusing exclusively on product attributes, the video highlights how Method products address specific consumer cares, namely, kids’ safety and the desire by moms to be perceived by their peers as doing the right thing. Presumably, Method did market testing and found out that with moms, these issues motivated greater brand preference and choice than alternatives.

Interestingly, green marketers can effectively influence consumer behavior even if consumers do not consider themselves to be green. One dramatic example comes from a Yale University/George Mason survey that segmented Americans based on their attitudes toward climate change.

The survey revealed that two consumer segments — the one most alarmed by and the one most dismissive of climate change — were the most future-oriented in terms of their outlook. Such attitudinal similarities provide a potential opening for marketers to try a more future-focused message when selling greener products to these segments despite their polar opposite views on climate change.

Be true to your brand. Some politicians try to reinvent themselves in order to tell voters what they want to hear. Arguably, this is similar to a brand that wants to engage consumers on green issues but is not currently perceived in the market as being green.

Brands do not necessarily have to be known for being green in order to be relevant to consumers. Instead, brands should tell their story in a way that is true to their existing brand positioning.

Unilever’s Axe is a great example. Known as an irreverent brand that uses the sex appeal of its products to drive sales, Axe launched its “ Showerpooling” campaign to engage its customer base on the issue of water conservation. The platform uses showerpooling — sharing showers — not only as a way to grab attention, but to make it relevant with the audience. The campaign jokes: “It’s not just environmentally friendly … it’s all kind of friendly.”

Target microsegments. The Obama campaign identified microsegments through research and projected these against a database of registered voters in a nationwide effort to influence voter choice. Of course, marketers could develop their own database by encouraging consumers to sign up for ongoing communications from a company.

But, even without a database, marketers can certainly target microsegments online. This can be done by targeting green consumers on contextually relevant sites, retargeting those visitors elsewhere online or by partnering with a demand side platform to identify and target audiences with like-minded profiles regardless of where they go online.

Turn loyalists into influencers. The Obama campaign successfully tapped its supporters to motivate friends in swing states to vote. Similarly, advertising campaigns should activate loyal customers to serve as influencers and advocates for the brand. Method deployed a similar approach in its recent campaign by distributing fun videos through social sites such as YouTube and Facebook and providing incentives for viewers to share them.

The Obama campaign demonstrated the power of microtargeting to influence voters, and arguably, affected the outcome of the election through this technique. Obama’s success was bolstered by focusing on specific issues most influential with specific voters, rather than a more general message. Such a campaign provides many lessons for green marketers — as well as the opportunity to take a similar approach to drive adoption of green products.

Growing Business Opportunities in Home Lighting, Heating

A ban on incandescent light bulbs took effect in the European Union last month, making more efficient lighting technologies — including compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) and light emitting diodes (LEDs) — standard across Europe. Such a milestone reminds us that market shifts — whether spurred by regulation or innovation — open up new opportunities for businesses to sell greener products and services to consumers.

Many of these emerging opportunities focus on efficient home energy solutions for consumers. Here are two that businesses should consider:

Next-generation lighting

The European Union isn’t the only region phasing out traditional incandescent lightbulbs. In 2007, the United States passed a similar regulation that effectively eliminates many of those bulbs by January of 2014. Initially, this mandate spurred demand for CFLs, likely from niche consumers willing to pay a higher price for an emerging technology that promised lower electrical usage and longer product life. But, since 2008, CFL purchases have declined each year, despite a precipitous drop in price.

Today, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, two thirds of the energy savings potential from CFLs has yet to be realized. As such, with the U.S. pulling out of the recession and consumers more willing to open their wallets, businesses have an opportunity to spur demand for next-generation lighting products.

Retailers are showing renewed interest in efficient bulbs. Ace Hardware, for example, recently declared Oct. 18 to be Annual Light Bulb Day to raise national awareness for CFLs and other lighting technologies. It also offered discounts on purchases to motivate foot traffic and drive sales.

Alternatively, Ikea has chosen to bypass CFLs: It plans to stock LEDs exclusively by 2016 because it believes the rapidly evolving technology will likely outperform CFLs in the near future. By picking a winner in the lighting category, IKEA generated a lot of buzz for its stores and interest in this emerging technology.

Utilities and utility regulatory boards are also spurring demand as they comply with state energy-efficiency mandates. For example, Efficiency Vermont, an organization authorized and funded by the Vermont Public Service Board to promote energy efficiency, launched a successful campaign to increase the use of CFLs. The campaign tackled the perception that CFLs were more expensive by advertising 99-cent bulbs available at participating retailers. It also created a sense of urgency (“good while supplies last”) to drive demand. The campaign was so successful that it doubled the number of CFLs sold per month.

Natural-gas home heating

Meanwhile, another home-energy opportunity is emerging: converting home heating systems from heating oil to natural gas. Not only would shifting to natural gas greatly reduce carbon emissions and improve local air quality, but — in most cases where gas lines are nearby — would also generate very positive returns for homeowners.

Technology innovation is precipitating this opportunity by unlocking vast amounts of natural gas in shale formations across the country. Many such formations are concentrated in the northeast, a region that historically has relied more on heating oil, partly because of the region’s limited pipeline capacity for bringing gas from the Gulf of Mexico. With natural gas supplies increasing, the residential price has dropped dramatically from its peak in 2005-2006.

Simultaneously, the residential price of heating oil has grown dramatically, providing even more incentive for households to switch to natural gas. In fact, according to the Energy Department, the average heating-oil-heated household now spends more than three times as much on heating ($2,298) as the average natural-gas-heated household ($724).

Of course, many of the developments in natural gas are the result of hydrofracking, a controversial extraction process. Many believe that hydrofracking risks contaminating aquifers used for drinking water, although the degree of risk is up for debate. And while greener fracking technologies are emerging, they haven’t yet reached commercial scale. Still, the benefits of shifting away from heating oil to natural gas may outweigh the costs.

If shale gas extraction continues, there are many ways that businesses can promote natural gas conversion to consumers. Certainly, energy companies can motivate their own customers to make the switch through the use of incentives. Utilities such as Con Edison are already helping to coordinate clusters of property owners to convert together, thereby lowering the upfront costs for individual customers.

Banks also can promote natural gas conversions by extending loans to help consumers make the switch. One such loan program by People’s United Bank covers the upfront conversion costs for Southern Connecticut Gas and Connecticut Natural Gas customers.

Market shifts in regulation and technology are enabling new opportunities to provide efficient home energy solutions for consumers. Many businesses are already starting to take advantage of this. Those that aren’t yet should take note: As the U.S. continues to emerge from the recession, consumer appetite for such solutions is only likely to increase.

Pinterest Emerging as Promising Platform for Green Marketers

Over the past 12 months, Pinterest has witnessed explosive growth. The site has topped 23 million unique visitors and average site visit time is nearly 100 minutes per month, making it one of the largest and most engaging social networks around. AdAge raves that “…Pinterest has gone from relative obscurity to exalted status alongside Facebook and Twitter…”

What is so compelling about Pinterest is its simplicity, empowering users to capture, curate and share content of interest at the click of a button. Moreover, its format allows users to easily browse and discover new content pinned by other users.

Brands, including green brands, are increasingly discovering the potential of Pinterest and finding ways to adapt this consumer-centric platform for their benefit.

Promote discovery. Consumers like to browse Pinterest and, while doing so, are discovering brands. Brands are maximizing their chance of being discovered by finding ways to distribute their content on Pinterest.

One way to accomplish this is for brands to directly curate their own Pinterest content. Additionally, brands can make truly compelling content available online. This could include visually powerful images on relevant and timely themes that the growing number of Pinterest users may find and pin onto their personal boards. Consumers can discover content on their own or be encouraged through contests like the one that Method deployed to incentivize Moms to pin images of Method products.

Strengthen brand identity. Companies are also finding ways to leverage Pinterest to help define their brands. They do so by using the Pinterest platform to distribute content that brings to life their brands — or core values.

Whole Foods, for example, says they are committed to “selling the highest quality natural and organic products available”. For Whole Foods, such a commitment originates in the garden where the food is grown and pays off through the appeal of the dish that is ultimately served and the healthier lifestyle to which the food contributes. Pinterest boards sponsored by Whole Foods bring each of these dimensions to life.

Highlight social responsibility. Pinterest can also enable brands to highlight its commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a very visible and compelling way. In addition to its other Pinterest initiatives, Whole Foods maintains a Pinterest board dedicated to the Whole Planet Foundation and its many initiatives sponsored around the world. Images map where contributions are made and illustrate the good works that are done in a format that seems, in many ways, less constrained or forced than the Corporate Social Responsibility tab on their corporate site.

Drive sales. Eco-friendly brands are also beginning to experiment with social networks to drive sales, and Pinterest is emerging as a key option. When looking at click-through rates to retail sites from the top three social networks — Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter — Facebook continues to drive the vast majority of traffic but Pinterest exceeds Twitter in terms of traffic generation. In fact, Pinterest is now responsible for more than 11 percent of user shopping sessions originating from the top social networks — Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Moreover, sales conversion rates for users originating from Pinterest are trending higher than from Twitter. At $169, the average order size of Pinterest users is substantially greater than for users that originate from either Facebook ($95) or Twitter ($71).

Brands like eBay are taking note, promoting eco-friendly products across a myriad of Pinterest boards, including health and beauty, fashion and electronics, and providing each product image with a direct link to a transaction page within the eBay Green site.

For green marketers, Pinterest provides a promising platform to engage consumers and for consumers to discover brands that they might not ordinarily interact with. Pinterest’s unique format provides the opportunity for companies to show their brands to consumers in a visually powerful way. Such interactions can provide dimension to a brand and can potentially drive sales. Green brands will be missing a key emerging opportunity online if they fail to consider their own Pinterest strategy.

How Mobile Apps Keep Shoppers’ Footprint Local

Today, many are touting the benefits of buying locally produced products because — all else being equal — these products have less of an environmental footprint because they travel shorter distances to market. Yet, there has been less attention paid to how far shoppers travel to make their purchases — and the opportunity to reduce their environmental impact when doing so.

Interestingly, many consumers view eCommerce as more eco-friendly than shopping on Main Street because they don’t have to travel from their homes to do so. But, environmental impact studies on the topic are mixed, and the actual answer depends on a lot of factors, including the number of products purchased at a time, the density of the surrounding area and the distance traveled to a store.

Moreover, online is estimated to represent only 7 percent of retail sales in the United States, with the vast majority of goods and services still being sold through traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.

Given that the overwhelming majority of sales are made offline, the Internet — and increasingly Internet-enabled mobile devices — arguably can have a significant impact how people shop when used to facilitate offline transactions closer to home. To that end, new mobile players with location-based services are emerging that aim to drive hyperlocal shopping.

For local businesses, such apps provide new ways to reach local audiences and drive foot traffic. Consumers benefit from the added convenience of finding what they need nearby. The environment also wins as consumers travel fewer miles to shop. Here are a few examples of mobile offerings that hold the potential to reduce the environmental impact of shopping:

Business locators. AroundMe is a popular app that takes advantage of geolocation capabilities to enable consumers to find businesses nearby. This app allows consumers to search merchant categories such as restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores, and displays results based on proximity or price (gas stations) or even availability (hotels). Such an app drives foot traffic to local establishments based on search results, as well as geo-targeted ads, while reducing the environmental impact of consumers traveling father distances to shop.

Product locators. JiWire recently launched Compass, a mobile advertising platform that enables retailers to target mobile users with relevant ads based on the location. What is interesting is that Compass can geolocate products from more than 200,000 retailers, allowing customers to then text or call retailers to put an item on hold for purchase. Not only does this create a superior consumer experience, but it enables consumers to avoid extra trips to make a purchase.

Location-based marketplaces. Grabio is a local marketplace that allows individuals and businesses to buy and sell goods through mobile devices. For local businesses, Grabio provides a new channel to reach consumers nearby. Local businesses can create mobile storefronts to list inventory, and conduct transactions using Grabio’s built-in mobile payment system. Because it is location-based, users know the exact location of the posting, providing added convenience — as well as reduced eco impact — when consumers make purchases closer to home.

Goshi, another emerging mobile marketplace puts a unique twist on this model by providing local “hubs” — a coffeehouse or other public meeting space — to exchange goods. The site allows local artisans and other businesses without storefronts to conduct transactions locally.

In-store rewards. Shopkick is a popular mobile application that provides consumers with rewards for shopping at — indeed, just walking into — a store. For retailers, the app generates much-coveted foot traffic – conversion rates are high once consumers walk in the door. While, today, most of Shopkick’s customers are national retail brands, the app holds significant potential for local retailers, by serving as a local loyalty program and keeping customers shopping closer to home.

Emerging mobile apps are motivating more consumers to shop locally. eCommerce was once hailed as a more eco-friendly way to shop because it eliminated the need to drive to a store. Now it should be mobile’s turn to help reduce the distance consumers have to travel to shop.

Climate Change Turns Personal: Why Brands Must Adapt

Until recently, climate change remained an abstract concept to most Americans — something that may have long-term consequences for the planet, but moving too slowly be a significant concern in their daily lives.

Today, however, such sentiments may be beginning to change. As more and more Americans experience such events firsthand, they’re beginning to make the connection between climate change and its growing impact. Natural disasters and extreme weather events such as high winds and rain storms, floods, droughts and heat waves are happening more frequently — and with greater intensity.

There’s some evidence supporting Americans’ change in attitude: A recent survey conducted by Yale and George Mason universities indicates that the vast majority of Americans agrees that climate change is making natural disasters and extreme weather events worse.  More than a third of respondents reported that they personally experienced “harm” to their property, finances or physical or mental health from a natural disaster or extreme weather event in the past year alone.

Brands should take note: Climate change is becoming more relevant for Americans as its effects become more personal.  Crossing such a threshold is significant as it means that consumers will likely become more attuned to corporate activities that impact climate change – either positively or negatively. This, in turn, could significantly impact brand favorability, preference and purchase over time. Consumers may seek to reward brands that help reduce the impact of climate change, while penalizing those that do not.

Climate change is not going away. Many factors have emerged that will only serve to reinforce why climate change is personally relevant for Americans. Here’s how this is happening:

More Americans will experience climate change impact. Whether it be wildfires in the West, floods in the Midwest or Texas droughts, more Americans will be impacted firsthand as the probability of natural disasters and extreme weather events is only expected to increase with time  — and reinforce just how personal climate change’s effects really are.

Our quality of life is increasingly impacted. Natural disasters and extreme weather events are having a growing impact on the personal life of Americans.  While ‘harm’ is an extremely important measure of climate change impact, it does not capture the impact that extreme weather events have on the everyday lives of most Americans.

For example, a violent, fast-moving storm may prevent a mother from dropping off a child at practice. Snow storms in October mean that it is too dangerous for young children to play outside, with tree branches – still full of leaves – breaking off under the weight of the snow.  And heat soaring above 100 degrees can be hazardous to those with no means of cooling off.

Americans are sharing their stories. Users are taking advantage of social media platforms to document and share content regarding climate change and its impact on natural disasters and extreme weather events.  Pinterest, in particular, has emerged as a compelling visual platform to share images, infographics and stories about climate change and weather-related events.

Moreover, nonprofits are also facilitating users to share their stories.  Recently, for example, 350.org launched its global “Connect the Dots” campaign to motivate users to document and share images and stories about local climate change impact across the globe.

Americans are seeking out experts.  The Yale/George Mason survey indicated that 58 percent of Americans want to hear more from their TV weather forecaster about climate change.

Yet today, such trusted experts are largely silent on the issue. Sixty-nine percent of Americans indicate that their weather forecaster never or rarely ever (1-2 times over the past 12 months) mentions climate change.  This is consistent with an estimated 72-90 percent drop in climate change coverage across evening and Sunday news programs between 2009 and 2011.

In the absence of regular reporting, Americans are going elsewhere for information. For example, a recent CNN interview with Bill Nye the Science Guy making the connection between wildfires and climate change has nearly a half million views on YouTube.

As the effects of climate change hit home, consumers will become more attuned to corporate efforts addressing the matter. Over time, they’ll indicate brand preference as well. Companies should take this into account when considering future commitments to more sustainable actions.

Reframing Ancestral Traits To Be Green

Certain human behaviors today reflect hardwired traits that helped our ancestors and their kin over time. Such behaviors provide individual benefit, yet the collective impact of such actions can be detrimental to the environment, creating a situation not unlike the Tragedy of the Commons.

Unfortunately, for green marketers, such individual behaviors are not easily influenced, creating an ever-present headwind that they must contend with. Confronting such behavior directly, such as asking individuals to make different choices because current ones are detrimental to the environment, has not proven very successful for marketers.

Instead, Vladas Griskevicius, Stephanie Cantú and Mark Van Vugt, in a recent paper published in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, suggest that there are alternative ways to shape such behaviors: Motivate individuals to take more pro-social (and therefore, more eco-friendly) actions by reframing them as having “evolutionary selfish” benefits.

Based on Griskevicius et al., there are at least three social motivations that will drive individuals to alter their behavior in a more pro-environmental way.

Social obligation. One ancestral trait that marketers must confront is that individuals promote self interest – or the interest of their kin – over others. Importantly, Griskevicius et al. note that this wasn’t always the case. For example, it is well documented that clans hunted together, generating mutual benefit. For marketers, this provides a window of understanding into how similar behavioral choices can be reframed today in order for individuals to generate positive benefits from collective actions.

One way marketers have tried to motivate individuals to do so is by creating a social obligation.  Hoteliers have attempted to do so by offering to make a donation on the behalf of guests if those guests reuse their towels once during their stay. Yet, when behavioral economists tested such messaging, it did not motivate significantly different behavior than traditional messaging.

Recently, economists have tried a different approach. This time, the offer of donation was reframed not as a choice but as a fait accompli. The hotel simply informed guests that a donation had been made on their behalf in exchange for reusing towels. In this case, guests felt more obligated to reciprocate, lifting towel reuse by 26 percent (from Goldstein, Noah J.,Vladas Griskevicius, and Robert B. Cialdini (2012), “Reciprocity by Proxy: Harnessing the Power of Obligation to Foster Cooperation,” Administrative Science Quarterly, forthcoming, as cited by Griskevicius et al.). For marketers, such reframing has broader applicability when companies can afford to incentivize consumer actions, but cannot track and reward individuals for their specific behaviors.

Social recognition. Another ancestral trait is that humans strive to achieve relative (though not absolute) status. This means that humans want a certain level of wealth, power or fame in relation to those around them. Such behavior – the proverbial “keeping up with the Joneses” – is well documented. For example, neighbors of Dutch lottery ticket winners have a higher propensity to purchase new cars or renovate the exterior of their existing homes within the following six months after the winner takes home the money. Such behavior, however, can be problematic as it can lead to over consumption.

Interestingly, consumption is not the only way to display relative status. In fact, as Griskevicius et al. mention somewhat counterintuitively, status can also be achieved through competitive altruism whereby wealthy donors compete for status based on the amount donated, with public recognition for their generosity as a primary motivator.

But marketers can drive eco-friendly actions more broadly with consumers, not just with wealthy donors. The Elan Inn in Hangzhou, China, for example, rewards hotel guests for reducing their carbon impact by moderating room temperatures in summer and winter, or even bringing their own towel. Such rewards would be even more powerful if status were associated with visible perks enjoyed during a hotel stay or meaningful badges displayed on Facebook or local social networks.

Social influence. A final ancestral trait is for humans to unconsciously emulate the behavior of others. For marketers, the challenge is to redirect the behavior by holding up pro-environmental behavior to emulate. For example, as Griskevicius et al. point out, it has been demonstrated that the conservation behavior of one’s neighbors is “often the strongest predictor of [one’s] actual energy use.”

Such benchmarking against others works well as long as a majority demonstrates the desired eco-friendly behavior. But, what happens if only a few neighbors do?

Griskevicius et al. suggest that in this situation, green marketers should reframe the message to create the perception that more people do. They provide an illustration: Instead of communicating that only 5 percent of municipal residents carpool, message that 250,000 do. Reframing the message from a relative to absolute basis can create the perception that more people support the eco-friendly behavior, elevating the social influence that a campaign can actually have.

Hardwired human traits present a challenge for green marketers, as individual behaviors that benefit natural selection may collectively be detrimental to the environment. Instead of confronting them head on, marketers should reframe behaviors to be more pro-social, while ensuring that they are perceived to benefit the individual. By doing so, marketers turn headwinds more favorable.